Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
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Disgust
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Fear
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Joy
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Sadness
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Language Tone
Analytical
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Confident
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Tentative
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Social Tone
Openness
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Conscientiousness
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Extraversion
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Agreeableness
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Emotional Range
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Tone of specific sentences
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Anger
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INTRODUCTION*How often have you or I had a day like this? Me too.
Chippie had a day like this.
Max Lucado lays out the story of Chippie.
Chippie the parakeet never saw it coming.
One second he was peacefully perched in his cage.
The next he was sucked in, washed up, and blown over.
The problems began when Chippie’s owner decided to clean Chippie’s cage with a vacuum cleaner.
She removed the attachment from the end of the hose and stuck it in the cage.
The phone rang, and she turned to pick it up.
She’d barely said "hello" when "ssssopp!" Chippie got sucked in.
The bird owner gasped, put down the phone, turned off the vacuum, and opened the bag.
There was Chippie -- still alive, but stunned.
\\ \\ Since the bird was covered with dust and soot, she grabbed him and raced to the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and held Chippie under the running water.
Then, realizing that Chippie was soaked and shivering, she did what any compassionate bird owner would do . . .
she reached for the hair dryer and blasted the pet with hot air.
Poor Chippie never knew what hit him.
A few days after the trauma, the reporter who’d initially written about the event contacted Chippie’s owner to see how the bird was recovering.
"Well," she replied, "Chippie doesn’t sing much anymore -- he just sits and stares."
It’s hard not to see why.
Sucked in, washed up, and blown over . . .
That’s enough to steal the song from the stoutest heart.
It would steal my song.
Has this stolen your song?
The first cli[p and the story of Chippie are kind of cute and humorous but trials are not are they?
· And this our question for today.
Sucked in, Washed up, and Blown Over.
Now what are we going to do?
This is an unbelievably crucial question.
The answer to this question is the line in the sand to help us grow up spiritually or stay an infant.
· Please turn to one of my favorite Bible Books..the book of Yacob-James.
James chapter 1
*OVERVIEW OF THE PASSAGE*
· Sucked in, Washed Up, and blown over.
This was the original situation of these Jewish believers who were kicked out of home through the diaspora found in Acts 7 and 11.
Scattered and homeless through the world.
They were beat up, forgotten, minimized, bruised and bloody.
And the first words from their spiritual leader James, the half-brother of Jesus are…
§ “I am so sorry you are hurting” or did he say, “Well, just try harder and pull yourself out of these traumas.”
Or, God is behind all of this so get angry and blame Him” Or “Let’s form a support group and figure this out.”
· Let’s read it.
READ IT-nasb
· Sometimes I like to read from another translation to interrupt my glassy eyes, my attitude of been there and read that.
Listen carefully to this translation.
THE MESSAGE
Let me tell you our thesis for today.
· Trials grow us up.
That is not grammatically correct but you get the point.
· Said another way is Spiritual Maturity is hammered out in our lives on the anvil of intervening difficulties.
· Said another way is When you are sucked in, washed up, and blown over, what are we going to do?
This determines our growth.
Before we plunge into this passage, let’s make today as real and practical as possible.
I am assuming all of us have gone through that sucking in process…maybe this week or last.
Perhaps we will be washed up again.
So, before we are blown over, let’s get prepared.
Let’s take a moment and think about a present trial, perhaps a past trauma, or a future difficulty.
Financial disaster, major marriage problems, an impossible work situation, heartache with children or family, uncertainty of health.
The Holy Spirit is filling in the blank, right now, isn’t He?
He is so faithful.
Capture one trial in your head that you either have or will have and keep retracing your memories back to this trial as we go…walk through this passage.
Circle rather than linear outline which seems to fit the passage and perhaps reflects a Jewish pattern of thinking.
*GOD ALLOWS OR ARRANGES…Any good Hebrew would believe in the total sovereignty of God.*
* *
*PURE JOY*
· This is the dominant position
· These are crucial first words like “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty-the Gettysburg address.
Orperhaps those first three crucial words of “We the people” Those words are the beginning of our constitution
· Crucial words because these really are possibly first words of first words.
Many believe James was written in 33, 34 AD.
What if these were the first words of the first words of the NEW Testament.
How important are they?
Does this passage set a blueprint, a template, a guide for the rest of the New Testament.
I know what I believe…
· I cannot tell how often I have quoted this passage to myself or others.
I remember Len saying this passage was a personal favorite of his.
I had to memorize it for myself and If you haven’t I would strongly encourage you to.
· Now this sounds a little sick, doesn’t it?
Doesn’t it feel a little wrong…joy and trials?
Like pouring Milk into Coke.
We go….oooooo, not quite right.
So, let’s set joy aside for a moment and retrace our steps back to it later.
*CONSIDER IT *
· Consider is a mental term.
But it is not “think.”
It is not suppose or assume.
God chooses “consider.”
· The word means curiously “leading thought, ruling thought, chief thought.”
· For these Jewish believers they would have thought of meditation.
But it is meditation on steroids.
It is meditation times XX3 or 4..strong!
· It bugs me sometimes that God is always after my thought life.
Sometimes the hardest work I do…Is working at a good attitude.
I remember one day in the last week, I woke up grumpy and this didn’t go right and that didn’t go right…and struggling with my attitude.
Sometimes the hardest work I do…
· God says to connect joy and trials.
And when we don’t think of TRIALS as JOY as psychologist would say we have a cognitive distortion.
Zig Zigler would say, “We have stinkin’ thinkin’.
It is stinkin’ thinkin’ when we DON’T CONSIDER IT JOY BECAUSE THIS IS GOD’S DESIRES.
THIS IS WHAT HE WANTS AND IS GOING TO EMPOWER US TO DO..CONSIDER..
· God says consider it joy.
As if God leans over and says, Make it the first thought, the ruling thought, the dominant thought.
This truth is in charge.
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